Insiders talking to each other. And being insiders it's all about -- How do we make this thing work? It's never -- Let's blow the damn thing up. Hell, if I were an insider I'd have the same attitude. It's nice being inside the buttercup, where you can feign agonizing concern with the added satisfaction of simultaneously sticking it to the rubes.

Of all the ways to spend a Sunday morning, Those shows have to be the least informing, entertaining, life affirming, interesting..., well just the worst.

Even reading this blog is better in all those ways.

I find the people on these shows are either people who know nothing, but will tell you lots or people who know lots, but tell you nothing. Either way, it's a thin broth.

It's talk for talk's sake. The agendas are so transparent, well-known and predictable that you can virtually tell what they are saying with the sound off, just by knowing who each person is. Nothing novel or insightful, especially compared to what is available elsewhere.

It used to be that the Sunday talk shows--all three of them--aired starting at the lunch hour, none competing with the hour, and the NFL had to wait.

They weren't very slick and featured full half-hour interviews with one person each week.

That probably made them a lot more substantive than these shows can manage these days. (Although personally, I rarely see any of them, except as excerpts on the Internet, because Sunday morning is pretty much prime time for we pastors.)

One thing I feel reasonably certain about though is that Lawrence Spivak never got a $100 haircut (or its 1940s through 1970s equivalent). That probably can't be said about David Gregory. (Not nostalgia; just a commentary on what the priorities may be in postmodern mass media.)

I am not sure why anyone bothers to watch them. I turn them off, as they seem to almost always be spinning either for or against the government (depending on the party in charge) as fast as they can. In short, propaganda aimed at people who really don't know what is going on in this country.

Does anyone think that an intelligent, bi-partisan show which actually focused on facts and issues in an in-depth fashion would find an audience? I know it costs more to produce than a show featured flapping gums, but an hour long look at a single issue which cut through all the BS and laid out the real facts would be a breath of fresh air.

Imagine a show which blew away all the false crap we've been fed about the "health care crisis". One that actually dealt with real issues -- tort reform, defensive medicine, medicare fraud, need for interstate competition, medical training reforms, record-keeping innovation, etc. A show which exposed the horrors of national health care in Europe and then had an honest debate about whether we want to go that way in the US.

Imagine an honest, competent news media producing one hour a week of quality, issue-oriented journalism that focused on facts and dispelled propaganda. You know, one that spoke truth to power.